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Recent News and UpdatesSun, 02 Aug 2015 19:20:18 +0000en-UShourly1Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with PageflakesSubscribe with The Free DictionarySubscribe with Bitty BrowserSubscribe with Podcast ReadySubscribe with Daily RotationMailChimp vs. Constant Contact: Which One Is The Best for You?http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/-waI539b1wI/mailchimp-vs-constant-contact-which-one-is-the-best-for-you
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/mailchimp-vs-constant-contact-which-one-is-the-best-for-you#commentsSun, 02 Aug 2015 15:00:16 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22346Since the release of the Bloom plugin, we’ve been rolling out a series of reviews about various email marketing services that you can use with it. We’ve covered quite a few to help give our readers a better understanding of what each one offers and how they measure up against each other. Two of the […]

MailChimp Overview: The Good and The Bad

The whole online persona of MailChimp is fun and friendly. The website, interface, blog posts, and other applications all speak to this. Even their cute mascot, Freddy, is a testament to the fun lovin’ vibes that they give off.

But even though they’re a younger company than Constant Contact, they have a firm grasp on what it takes to help people succeed in their email marketing efforts, as well.

There are good things about MailChimp, and some not so good.

But whatever makes them worth using is really up to you. Below is a few pros and cons of their service to help you along your decision-making journey.

The Good

Free For Up To 2,000 Subscribers

Probably the biggest selling point for MailChimp is the fact that you can sign up and use their service for free. Unlike other services that state they are free but are in fact only free during a trial period, MailChimp is actually free — and can be free forever.

The free account doesn’t have every single feature available to the email service, but you get just about everything you’d need to jump start your email list.

You’re limited to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 sends for each month, but when you’re first starting out this is more than enough to build your list and stay connected with your subscribers.

A/B Testing and Reports

MailChimp has a comprehensive Reports section

If we’ve learned anything about marketing, in general, it’s this:

Test, test, and keep on testing.

Many email marketing services that have A/B testing or reporting features require you to pay to use it.

This isn’t the case with MailChimp.

The A/B testing and generating in-depth reports is available in every plan — including the free plan.

More than that, it’s very easy to split test and segment your lists in order to do so.

Really Cool Mobile Apps

MailChimp Apps for when you’re on the go

MailChimp has a staggering number of 7 mobile apps that you can use so that even when you’re away from your computer, you can manage your email list.

Snap is an interesting app that allows you to snap a photo, turn it into a campaign, and send it to a select few or an entire list.

This can be really useful for people like fashion bloggers, for example. See a beautiful outfit on the street or in a shop window? Snap a photo, add your written content, and then share it with your audience.

You may not need these right now, and you may not need all of them, but they’re there and ready for you if and when you do.

The Bad

You Have to Upgrade to Send Automated Emails

A drawback to the free plan in MailChimp is it doesn’t come with automated emails as part of the deal.

Many know the importance of sending welcome emails and efficient autoresponder series, so not having that as part of the free plan is a bit of a bummer — especially for new bloggers on a shoestring budget.

If you want to send those types of emails, then you’ll need to upgrade. Thankfully, pricing starts at only $10 which isn’t half bad.

Things Can Get Costly

Although the starting price of $10 per month sounds nice, you might want to take a close look at the details.

$10 a month only covers 500 subscribers, and MailChimp will automatically change your account to the next tier if your subscriber count goes above that which means you could get a surprising bill if your list building is going well.

If you wind up with a massive mailing list of say… 25 thousand subscribers, your monthly bill is $150.

This isn’t too bad since you should be making money at this point with a list that large, but MailChimp does charge you more for a larger list — just like everyone else does.

Affiliates Can Get Shut Down

If you read through Brenda’s review of MailChimp here on the blog, then this likely isn’t the first time you’ve heard this. Apparently, MailChimp is a bit of a stickler when it comes to affiliate marketing:

Another drawback of using MailChimp is its dislike of affiliate marketing. If your business model includes this, it could be a deal breaker for you. Affiliate marketing is meant to be unobtrusive and based on trust and recommendations, but MailChimp will stop any email that it deems to contain its blacklisted links, which includes many retailers. It will do this without warning, possibly leading to a complete shutdown of your account. ~ Source

Yeah… that’s a bit harsh.

Though I understand that MailChimp doesn’t want its service to be used to spam people’s inboxes, quite a few of the best bloggers make a living from affiliate marketing and are not senders of spam.

It would be a massive headache to have to deal with if your account was shut down when you did nothing wrong other than it includes a link in your email that they didn’t like.

Especially since there is almost no one to contact to fix this issue, which leads into to the next downside.

Support is Lacking

For all of the great features that come with MailChimp, this is a downside that can easily be a dealbreaker.

If you use the free plan for your email list, but you need help — tough cookies because you’re on your own. If you need help or your account gets locked for some reason, you have no way of getting in touch with people and getting it resolved. At least that’s been my experience.

Though they do have videos and a decent sized knowledge base, it’s always nice to be able to pick up the phone and call someone when you’ve hit a wall.

You do get email and chat support when you upgrade to a paid version though, but it would be nice to get some help when first setting things up.

Constant Contact Overview: The Good and The Bad

Constant Contact

Now it’s time to consider the old dog in this race. Constant Contact has been around for quite awhile — about 20 years really.

Below is the bullet points of the good and the bad about what Constant Contact offers.

The Good

24/7 Support

Do you have a question about your account? Need help setting up it up or fixing something?

Then grab your phone and give the support line a phone call. If you don’t feel like chatting on the phone, you can send an email or hop on a chat with a customer service rep.

In fact, after you sign up for an account with them, a representative will call you to ask if you need help getting things set up. And if they miss you, you can expect an email in your inbox.

Easy-To-Use Template Builder

Though both MailChimp and Constant Contact (CC) have template builders, the one that comes with CC is a little easier to navigate and has more customization options.

They made it easy to change colors and fonts, and they have what they call ‘Blocks’ which contains various layouts and styles to them to help you create a unique email.

Take It With You On the Go

Let’s face it — most of us are busy people on the go.

But I don’t know a single person who doesn’t leave their house without a cell phone.

Since many people can’t be at their computers all day everyday, it’s nice to have the ability to keep track of important things like an email campaign.

Like MailChimp, Constant Contact has a mobile app that lets you stay on top of stuff even when you’re away from your laptop.

The Bad

No RSS-to-Email Feature

I found this rather surprising, but when I went through testing my Constant Contact account, I couldn’t find the RSS-to-Email feature.

Apparently, that’s because it doesn’t exist.

That’s not to say that you can’t include blog content in your email and send it out — you can do that.

But setting up a trigger event where Constant Contact will automatically send out an email when your blog is updated isn’t available as an easy-to-use feature.

More Expensive Than MailChimp

Whereas MailChimp charges only $10 for up to 500 subscribers, Constant Contact charges twice as much for the same subscriber count.

MailChimp is upfront about pricing; you can figure out what you will get charged based how many subscribers you have. Whether it’s 10 thousand or 100 thousand, you can enter the price in the calculator in your account and see exactly how much you will be charged.

CC is not so transparent. If you’re above 5 thousand subscribers for your list, you’ll pay $85 a month. But what if you go above 10 thousand on your list?

There’s no easy way of knowing the price. You have to call customer service to get it, and since it’s not set in stone on their website, they could charge just about whatever number they want to.

A/B Testing? Umm… Kind Of

This, for me, is the kind of deal breaker that shouldn’t even exist in an email marketing platform.

Nowadays, everyone knows that the best way to measure what is working in your marketing strategy is to test various features — like email titles, for example.

With Constant Contact, they don’t have a simple method of A/B testing emails and then measuring the statistics. A brief overview of their support forum shows the extreme frustration that many users have because of this.

Why haven’t they made this service easy like MailChimp and other email marketing platforms?

I have no idea.

Which One is Best?

Each of these email marketing services has something that the other one lacks.

But which one is the best?

The folks at Capterra did a poll on which platform people preferred. They spoke with 60 small business owners, many of which had used both MailChimp and Constant Contact, and asked them which of the two they liked better.

For many, even though both MailChimp and Constant Contact have support, being able to pick up the phone and call someone is enough to tip the scale in Constant Contact’s favor.

However, simple A/B Testing and RSS-to-Email are now something that just about everyone wants to be able to do — and it’s something Constant Contact doesn’t do well at all.

So how do you choose? Which one should you pick?

Perhaps after this comparison you’ve already made up your mind about which one to go with.

If not, then why not sign up for both and test them out personally?

Both of these email marketing providers have free versions that can give you an overall feel of each one. Give yourself a bit of time, test them out, and then decide which route you want to go.

I’m sure plenty of the readers here on Elegant Themes have used one or both of these and have some unique insights that could relly help others make a good choice. Leave your comments below and let us know which one you prefer.

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/mailchimp-vs-constant-contact-which-one-is-the-best-for-you/feed1http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/mailchimp-vs-constant-contact-which-one-is-the-best-for-youBlogging Basics: How to Produce Content That Will Grow Your WordPress Businesshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/xtN7mez6fwk/blogging-basics-how-to-produce-content-that-will-grow-your-wordpress-business
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/blogging-basics-how-to-produce-content-that-will-grow-your-wordpress-business#commentsSat, 01 Aug 2015 15:00:04 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22356Even if you were living under a rock and in a cave, I’d be willing to bet you’ve heard of content marketing. It’s been the buzzword of the year for several years running and it doesn’t appear to going away anytime soon. It’s the modern method of selling and selling has been going on, well, […]

]]>Even if you were living under a rock and in a cave, I’d be willing to bet you’ve heard of content marketing. It’s been the buzzword of the year for several years running and it doesn’t appear to going away anytime soon. It’s the modern method of selling and selling has been going on, well, since the beginning of time.

As someone who is running a WordPress business, chances are you’re trying to grow your client base. There is also a pretty good chance that you’re trying to use content marketing to attract some of your new clients.

But talk to me about your content strategy. I’d be willing to bet you don’t have one. If you’re nodding your head right now, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

That’s about to change, though. Starting today, you’re going to have a clear picture of exactly how you can go about the process of creating content that will help grow your business.

Some Statistics to Back Up the Premise

Before we dive into the details, there are some brief statistics worth sharing. These stats will help to drive home some of the arguments I am going to present. Let’s take a look:

As of 2014, 93% of marketers surveyed were using content marketing. (CMI)

As someone whose business it is to provide WordPress services – be it designer, developer, optimization or maintenance – what do these statistics have to do with you or your business? Great question.

Points 1-3 demonstrate the obvious significance of content marketing. Points 4 & 5 demonstrate the relative effectiveness of content marketing but also show a clear opportunity for improvement. And the final point demonstrates that the majority of content marketers have no documented strategy in place.

Is it possible that by having a documented strategy in place, you might be able to increase the effectiveness of your efforts?

If you’re responsible for marketing your WordPress business and you don’t have a documented strategy in place, this article is for you. By the time you’ve finished reading this article, you should have a clear picture of what you need to change and how your current strategy can be improved.

Content Creation Steps – Image by mojoez / shutterstock.com

How to Create Content in Two Simple Steps

Most of the time, the content creation process it pretty simple. It looks like this:

Pour a cup of coffee.

Sit down at your computer.

Think about a topic to write about.

Write.

Click publish.

Go back to what you were doing before creating content.

Repeat next week.

Not much of a strategy there, right? Unfortunately, that’s how many small WordPress businesses go about the process of creating content. By the seat of their pants.

But how might the process look if we put a little more thought and planning into it? What are the most important steps in the planning process?

Step 1: Identify Your Personas

This is an idea that has popped up a few time on Elegant Themes recently and for good reason – it’s important. No, it’s more than important, it’s mission critical.

The very first step in creating content is to understand who the content is for. If your answer is “my clients” then this article is exactly what you need to be reading. Yes, you’re writing for your current and prospective clients but that’s not specific enough. Who exactly are they?

As far as deciding what information should be included in a buyer persona, you can head over to this article at Content Marketing Institute for a very thorough description.

Mapping your buyer personas (you’ll probably have more than one) is not something you’re going to be able to complete in fifteen minutes. You need to clearly map out (in writing and in great detail) who your clients are. You can even go so far as to include a picture that represents what they might look like. Actually, you should do exactly that. And when you’re producing content, you’ll want to keep the whole persona, picture and all, right in front of you.

Step 2: Plan Your Content

I outlined the typical content creation process earlier – essentially, grab a coffee and begin writing. That’s how the majority (56%) of businesses go about the process. With little or no plan in place, how can you expect the results to be positive?

If you visit the websites of a few WordPress developers or designers, you’ll usually see some pretty typical content. Information about the latest Google algorithm changes, reviews of contact forms or how to set up a 301 redirect. Pretty standard fare, agreed?

But is this content really written for clients? Do clients care about 301 redirects or the recent panda update? Usually, the answer is no, they don’t. Your client is interested in finding a solution to their problem. Their problem isn’t Panda, it’s the fact that their rankings have slipped. Your content should always relate back to your prospects core problem.

You also have to remember that every prospect is at a different place in the buying process. Not only must you write content for each individual buyer persona, you also need you write content for each phase of the buying process. The three phases are:

Awareness of the problem.

Understanding the problem and gathering information.

Ready to make a decision.

Let’s examine these phases in greater detail:

Phase #1 – Awareness of the Problem

In this phase of the buying process, your prospect suspects they have a problem but are unsure of the cause or extent of the issue.

Let’s imagine your prospective client (a restaurant owner) sees a drop in new customers but they have no idea why. In a typical month, they might see 21 new customers from their website. For the last 2 months in a row, they’ve had only three new customers from their website each month.

They recognize there might be a problem but are as of yet, are unsure exactly what might be causing it.

Going online, they begin searching Google for answers. Because you understand your clients potential problems as well as you do, it just so happens you wrote an article last month that explained the importance of maintaining good rankings for restaurants. Because your article appears that it might answer their questions, they click through from Google to your website.

In the article, you talk about what happens when their rankings in the SERPs drop, the effects on the restaurant’s bottom line, and the potential causes including algorithm updates. Thanks to your article, our prospect is now more aware of their problem.

Good content at this stage of the buyer’s journey should provide information and be non-promotional. Your prospect isn’t looking for a new website, SEO help or content. They are simply trying to understand what’s causing their problem.

As you’re writing content for this phase of the buyer’s journey, make sure you:

Explain what the problem is.

Provide overview information that is specific to their business.

Provide or offer resources that will help them learn more.

Phase #2 – Understand the Problem and Gather Information

When your car breaks down, what’s the first thing you do? Exactly, you take it to a mechanic who tells you what’s wrong (phase 1). But what happens next? Usually, he presents you with a series of potential solutions.

You can get your car fixed, you can buy a new one or you could trade it in. There are pros and cons to each solution.

Phase two is all about providing your prospects with potential solutions. As you educate them about the problem they are facing, they will become receptive to learning about potential solutions. Your content is going to do just that.

Because this is the research phase, remember, it’s still not is the time to begin promoting your business or services. The restaurant owner is more concerned about learning what caused her ranking problem and how it can be fixed than who she’ll hire to fix it.

The ideal types of content at this stage in the buyer’s journey include:

Presenting potential solutions to their problem.

Providing comparisons.

Creating how-to guides.

Recording webinars, podcasts or hosting Google hangouts.

Phase #3 – Ready to Make a Decision

Phase 3, the final phase in the buyer’s journey, involves a purchasing decision. Who is she going to hire to help solve her problem?

To recap, we’ve helped your prospect do the following:

In Phase 1 we helped her realize that the decrease in new business was the result of a rankings drop in the SERPs. Through your article, you also explained how this ranking change results in fewer clicks, fewer calls and a corresponding drop in revenue. Your prospect now understands her business would be doing much better if she were in the top three instead of being on page three.

In Phase 2 we helped her understand the potential causes of the problem with another great article. She now understands that the decrease in rankings is a result of a Google penalty. The website is not present a great user experience and also needs to be mobile-friendly.

If you’ve done a good job of walking your prospect through the first two stages, now is your opportunity to present some content that will aid in the decision-making process.

But what kind of questions will aid in the decision-making process? Think about the questions from your prospect’s point of view:

What makes your WordPress development or design services better than the competition?

Do you offer free consultations?

Are there any testimonials or guarantees?

How does your onboarding process work?

How long do these kind of projects take?

These are the kinds of questions your prospect is probably asking at this stage of the buying process as they work towards making a final decision.

Even though you’re helping your prospect to make a decision, you still want to avoid the hard-sell approach. But at the same time, make it very clear that you’re open for business. Your ability to persuade the prospect to contact you at this stage of the buyer’s journey is highly dependent upon how well you accomplished the first two phases.

Create Easily Consumed Content – Image by 1ZiMa / shutterstock.com

Common Best Practices

Producing effective content that will grow your WordPress business is part science, part art. There a few best practices that are worth keeping in mind:

Be Helpful First

Nobody likes being sold. The whole purpose of content marketing is to educate and help prospects first, and then help them make a buying decision. Phase one and two are the most important steps in the buyer’s journey. Don’t underestimate their value.

Create Easily Consumed Content

Like you, prospects and customers are busy. Chances are, they don’t always have time to read through 2000 word posts (my apologies). For the most part, keep it short and specific to the problem at hand. Use varying mediums – written content, videos and audio can all make the journey easier.

Specificity Rules the Game

While it’s easier to write content that applies to your whole audience, that’s not necessarily the best choice. The whole purpose of creating detailed customer personas is so that you can create content which speaks directly to them. Yes, it’s time-consuming. Especially if you have more than a few personas, but that’s what will help to separate your content from the competition.

Be Good, Not Beautiful

A short 40-word blog post that discusses a specific solution to a prospect’s problem is always better that a 2500 word post that contains a dozen beautiful images and is full of fluff. The same thing applies to a video recorded with your iPhone versus a high-quality digital production. If your two-minute video presents valuable information or answers specific questions, you’re on the right track. Obviously you want to appear professional, but don’t substitute flash for substance.

Wrap Up

The purpose of this post was to help you understand the difference between just “producing content” and producing content that will help grow your business.

The key differentiators in the process are:

To understand who your prospects are through the creation of detailed buyer personas.

To understand that the content you create needs to walk you prospects through all three phases of the buying process.

If you skip either one of these two steps, your content will be lacking the necessary ingredients and your results will be greatly diminished.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to create awesome content that will help you grow your WordPress business spend some time checking out great resources like HubSpot and CMI.

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/blogging-basics-how-to-produce-content-that-will-grow-your-wordpress-business/feed3http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/blogging-basics-how-to-produce-content-that-will-grow-your-wordpress-businessThe Month in WordPress — July 2015 Editionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/6pNGi0H3L_A/the-month-in-wordpress-july-2015-edition
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/editorial/the-month-in-wordpress-july-2015-edition#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 15:00:43 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22442Yup — that’s right. Another month has come to a close. As I’m writing this, I’m enjoying the sunshine and a bit of summer fun here on the West Coast of U.S.A. (Yay, summer!) This month (as usual) has been another great month for Elegant Themes and WordPress enthusiasts alike. And just when I thought […]

As I’m writing this, I’m enjoying the sunshine and a bit of summer fun here on the West Coast of U.S.A. (Yay, summer!)

This month (as usual) has been another great month for Elegant Themes and WordPress enthusiasts alike. And just when I thought the world of WordPress couldn’t be any more intriguing, intricate and slightly elusive, July went and proved me wrong.

This month has presented the WP community with a lot to talk about, and we’re going to dive right into it.

This Month in WordPress

Automattic-ally Surprising

Automattic vs Chris Pearson: An interesting story

If you’ve been following along in the WordPress news throughout the month, then the unfolding story of Automattic buying the Thesis.com domain is probably nothing new to you. In case you’ve missed that little tidbit from this month, here is the lowdown.

In 2014, Automattic made the move to buy the Thesis.com domain from a third-party for the price of $100,000.

Previous to this purchase, the third-party had been in negotiations with another prospective buyer — Chris Pearson.

When news came to light that Automattic purchased the domain name and were using it as a forwarding domain to another website, Chris filed a cease and desist order on Automattic.

Now, on the surface, this may seem quite confusing, so let’s color in the gray areas.

Chris Pearson is the owner of DIYthemes which homes the rather popular Thesis Theme. The Thesis Theme was one of the first big themes to hit the WordPress market, and as a pioneer in the WordPress community, Chris is known by more than a few.

Chris never registered the Thesis domain, however, he had in fact registered Thesis as a trademark.

With the purchase and usage of the Thesis.com domain by Automattic, Chris’ trademark legally required him to order a cease and desist; and since Chris believed this domain was bought in “bad faith” he wanted the domain transferred back to him.

Though this situation in older than this month, the news of it only gained some spotlight in July.

On July 8, 2015, Chris lost the legal case against Automattic, and since then they have issued a petition to cancel Chris’ trademarks. The situation has caused quite the stir, but most people seem to be taking Chris’ side in the situation.

Why?

Because this seemingly insignificant situation isn’t the only time Pearson and Automattic have gone head to head. Back in 2010 Chris and Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg got in a heated debate about the way Thesis was licensed. In that situation, and in Chris’ own words, “got defensive and… was a jerk .”

As a result of his actions, Chris got a lot of backfire from the WP community and lost a lot of respect.

At the time, I was woefully ignorant about software licensing, and I felt as though I was being backed into a corner and asked to accept something I didn’t fully understand. Instead of handling it in a measured, polite manner, I was a jerk.

…Matt did whatever he could to further damage what was left of my business. His most blatant effort in this regard was making a public offer to buy Thesis customers the premium, GPL-licensed Theme of their choice if they quit using Thesis.

The only statement on record as to why Automattic would be interested in purchasing the Thesis.com domain is as follows:

We’re happy the panel ruled in our favor. We think Thesis.com is a cool, generic .com that could be used for a variety of things. Just because you have a small WordPress theme doesn’t mean you have a right to seize generic English word .com domains. ~ Source

As more details come to light, more are sure to add their opinions to the mix.

Has Automattic gone too far this time or are they in the right? If they win this trademark cancelation, what ramifications can be foreseen for others in the WP community?

Feel free to add your comments at the end of the article.

New WP Update Means New Default Setting for Pages

July also saw the WordPress 4.2.3. update.

This update fixed 20 bugs found in the last core update, but what many didn’t know is that now WordPress will have comments turned off by default for all Pages.

This is something many have been waiting to happen for a long time now, so go and do your happy dance ’cause it’s finally come true.

Highlights from the Elegant Themes Blog

3 Stock Video Sites for a Media Hungry World | Engaging media is the difference between content that people stick around for or not. Video, when used correctly, can be a fresh way to engage your audience and give them something new. Check out this post to learn where you can snag a few tips on finding and using stock video.

The Essential Plugins for WordPress Business Websites | When you’re building a website for your business, it can be hard to nail down exactly what plugins you’ll need to get your content engine chugging away. Shaun shares the most important plugins you should be using to help point you in the right direction.

Is WordPress the Best Platform to Power Your SaaS? | Mmm-mmm — love me some SaaS. (Software as a Service, that is.) When you’re about to launch your product into the wild, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by what platform to choose before you blast off into the digital unknown. Is WordPress the best option for you? Read this post to figure it out.

When and How to Sell Ads on Your WordPress Site | There are many ways to monetize a blog. Some do affiliate marketing, other sell their time or their own products, and others sell ad space. In this article, I walk through some pros and cons of selling ads on a site and how to go about doing just that.

HOW TO MOVE FROM WORDPRESS.COM TO WORDPRESS.ORG | So you wanna switch to a self-hosted WordPress site? For some, getting this done is utterly perplexing, but it doesn’t have to be. This post on WPKube can help you get from point A to point B in your migration journey.

Persona Non Grata – 10 Years as a WordPress Entrepreneur | Honesty, humor, clarity, insight. All of this you will find in James Farmer’s post on WPMU DEV. This article does have a bit of language in it, but there’s something about James’ pure honesty that keeps your reading from start to finish.

How To Set Up An Automated Email Newsletter With MailChimp | Automation is supposed to make our live easier; expect we have to be the ones to set up that initial automation which isn’t all that easy. If you’ve been struggling to find an article that explains how to use MailChimp to set up an automated newsletter, then look no further than this one.

Do you make these nine web design mistakes? | Sometimes it takes another pair of eyes to spot our mistakes — and we all make them. Designing websites is one of those things where you can easily make an error without even realizing it. Disha lists 9 that are simple enough to spot and fix in a few minutes.

25 Lessons from 25 Months of Content Marketing | Medium has quickly become a favorite place to easily find and read amazing content. This article by Gregory Clotti on Medium had some really great insights about what he’s learned in the past 2 years as a content marketer.

How to Generate Leads Through Content Marketing | Ah, Neil. His stuff just radiates awesomeness. His article here is nothing short of an amazing read that makes everything you think you know about content marketing that much easier to understand.

How To Grow Your Blog’s Audience (And Keep It)| Growing your online audience is not as easy as some claim. However, Adam is someone who has created a few online sites that do amazingly well. His tips are some you’ve heard of and some you’ve haven’t, but each one is expanded on so that they’re actionable. Definitely a must read.

5 Link-Building Methods Divulged by SEO Pros | Link-building is one of those things that boggle the minds of many, however, it doesn’t have to. This post by Fernando has some great tips on methods for building links with some helpful information from the pros.

6 Tips on How to Publish on Medium | Even if you’re a die-hard WordPress user, when you’re looking to market yourself, your brand or your business, Medium has many things about it to lure you in. Marketing with Medium can help spread your content further. Want some tips on how to maximize your content there? Check this post out.

Wrapping It Up

Holy frijoles!

This month has been one of the most interesting months of 2015. There were so many great articles and stories that it was hard to capture all of them in this month’s roundup.

So let’s turn it over to you.

What was your best read this month? What other blogs do you love to read? What’s your take on the Automattic vs Pearson situation?

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/editorial/the-month-in-wordpress-july-2015-edition/feed5http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/editorial/the-month-in-wordpress-july-2015-editionThe Pros and Cons of Income Reports (and the Income Reports You Should Be Following)http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/tZzGonAkj3g/the-pros-and-cons-of-income-reports-and-the-income-reports-you-should-be-following
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/editorial/the-pros-and-cons-of-income-reports-and-the-income-reports-you-should-be-following#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 15:00:40 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22244Why, in an age when online privacy is a bigger issue than ever before, are some bloggers happy to share one of their most personal of details: How much they earn. That’s right: every month, bloggers are sharing a line-by-line breakdown of their earnings with thousands of people. These breakdowns are more commonly known as […]

]]>Why, in an age when online privacy is a bigger issue than ever before, are some bloggers happy to share one of their most personal of details: How much they earn.

That’s right: every month, bloggers are sharing a line-by-line breakdown of their earnings with thousands of people. These breakdowns are more commonly known as income reports, the focus of today’s post.

But why do bloggers publish income reports? And, more importantly, is it something you should be doing? Today, I’ll do my best to answer these questions by looking at the pros and cons of income reports.

And, if you’re in need of some inspiration, I’ll also be introducing you to 12 of the best income reports for WordPress users to follow. Let’s get started.

Should You Publish Income Reports?

It’s an issue that divides bloggers: to publish income reports or not to publish income reports. Some share their income every month like clockwork, while others won’t even entertain the idea.

It has to be said, however, that the bloggers who publish income reports are in the minority. And, if most bloggers don’t publish them, then why should you bother?

Income Report Pros

Well, there are actually lots of good reasons. Here are eight for starters.

1. Inspiration

Earning a living online is difficult — it can feel like an uphill struggle at times, especially if your effort has yet to bear fruit. Income reports show readers that there’s light at the end of the tunnel; that there is good money to be made. This can be the shot in the arm they need to keep on trying.

It’s also worth pointing out that income reports document the whole journey — not just the good times. Realizing that your favorite superstar blogger overcame the same struggles that you’re experiencing can be hugely motivating.

2. Credibility

Whose advice are you more likely to trust: a blogger earning $10k/month or a blogger earning nothing?

The answer, of course, is the $10k/month blogger. If people know you’re successful, they’re more likely to sit up and take notice. This can increase your readership and add extra zeros to your income.

3. Relatable

By documenting your failures as well as successes, your income reports make you more relatable. By knowing that you’re a real person who makes mistakes, you can develop a more personal relationship with your audience.

4. Opportunities

If your goal as a blogger is to help your readers earn more money from their websites, income reports can offer a lot of value.

This is because, typically, income reports share a blogger’s many revenue streams, which can help readers identify new ways to monetize their own website. And, if you break down your income piece by piece — for example, listing the earnings from individual affiliate schemes — readers can identify the biggest opportunities.

5. Lessons

Some bloggers say that they write income reports for themselves first, readers second.

Think of it like a diary — you can use your income reports to document the things that worked, as well as the things that went wrong. Learn from this, and you’ll avoid the same pitfalls. It can also be inspiring to see how far you’ve progressed as a blogger, which can keep you motivated during lean months.

6. Feedback

Many bloggers share their future plans in income reports, giving visitors the opportunity to chime in with suggestions via the comments section.

Sometimes these comments will validate your plans, or perhaps introduce you to a new way of thinking.

7. Accountability

Many bloggers publish income reports purely to hold themselves accountable — by making next month’s plans public, you’re more likely to stick to them.

If you fail to meet your targets, expect some friendly ribbing in the comments.

8. Traffic

The final benefit is perhaps the most obvious: people like reading income reports! This makes them a great source of traffic.

If you read a blogger’s income report one month, you’re more likely to drop by next month to see how they did. This can turn a casual reader into a lifelong fan.

Income Report Cons

Of course, income reports aren’t without their problems — otherwise, everyone would publish them!

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons not to publish income reports.

1. Private

Your income is nobody’s business but yours, right? Some people just don’t want others prying into something as personal as their income levels.

2. Scrutiny

Haters gonna hate, right? If you regularly post five- and six-figure months, it won’t take long for jealousy to rear its ugly head.

Some people might find your earnings inspirational, others will scrutinize everything you say, looking for opportunities to call you a liar.

3. Suspicion

In many ways, it’s unsurprising that income reports attract scrutiny, as some bloggers — *cough* scammers — do falsify their earnings.

Although it’s ethically wrong, if you pretend to be successful, some people will believe you and buy your products. This causes some people to view all income reports with suspicion.

4. Low Sales

If high revenues can boost sales, low revenues can certainly hurt your potential growth. After all, is a blogger earning modest sums really the best person to grow your website? Sometimes, sometimes not.

Remember: new bloggers are still capable of giving great advice, even if their income levels have yet to catch up with the value they’re offering. Unfortunately, not everyone will see it that way.

5. Unrelatable

Sure, income reports can be motivational. On the flipside, though, when your earnings become too large, you become totally unrelatable.

If a reader is earning, say, $200/month, there is a huge disconnect between someone earning $10,000/month. This may result in some readers believing your advice isn’t relevant to them.

6. Copycats

The main problem with being totally transparent? Anyone reading your income reports regularly will know the ins and outs of your business model.

Some will use this for inspiration, while others will simply rip your idea off. This is a problem I’ve read about in a number of income reports — the moment a blogger becomes reasonably successful, their industry is flooded with copycats. These aren’t people trying to improve on your idea — which, let’s face it, is a part of doing business — these are people simply looking to duplicate your business without adding any of their own brainpower.

7. Time-Consuming

It goes without saying: producing 3,000-word monster posts documenting everything you’ve done in the last month can take a serious amount of time. And, when you start publishing income reports, your audience begins to expect them every month.

Some bloggers decide that the effort that goes into producing them just isn’t worth it.

8. Egotistical

Are you publishing your income reports to motivate your readers, or to brag about all the cash you’re making?

Even if your income reports are published with the best of intentions, some readers won’t see it that way.

Income Reports Worth Following

Whether you want to publish income reports or not on your blog, you can still benefit from the income reports published on other blogs, right? That’s perhaps one of the reasons why income reports are so popular, even if they’re not published universally.

In this section of the post, I want to introduce you to 12 of my favorite income reports. Some of these businesses operate in the WordPress industry, while others simply use WordPress to power their blogs.

All of the businesses listed here, however, earn their income (almost) exclusively online. In my opinion, this makes these results attainable to any WordPress user — provided you work smart and put in the prerequisite effort. I’ve also deliberately picked a variety of businesses — service providers, bloggers, affiliates, technical niches, non-technical niches, beginners, established — to reflect the many different ways that WordPress can be monetized.

WP Curve

If you’re considering starting your own WordPress-based business, look no further than WP Curve for inspiration.

Co-founded by Dan Norris and Alex McClafferty, WP Curve quickly established itself as the number one place for WordPress support, maintenance, and quick-fixes.

Their income reports make for a fascinating read, with complete transparency on income, traffic figures, and even an insight into their business mechanics. There’s also in-depth analysis on what has worked for them and what has gone wrong, as well as a look towards future plans.

As one of the longest-running income reports in the list, you can follow WP Curve’s remarkable growth from scratch through to the latest income report, which showed monthly recurring revenues of over $65,000.

CodeinWP

Every month, CodeinWP publish a fantastically detailed income report. They’re the guys behind ThemeIsle, so that makes their reports a must-read for all aspirational theme developers.

In the whole of 2013, their business brought in a big fat zero. The team was able to turn around their business, and by May 2015 they were bringing in a whopping $80,000/month.

Best of all, each income report offers a comprehensive look inside the different aspects of their business, giving you a more complete picture of how they turned around their business. Although the income reports are relatively new (there are just five editions to date), each one provides a lot of value.

WP Rocket

Next up, we have the income reports from the company behind top WordPress caching plugin, WP Rocket.

With six updates so far, it’s another income report series in its infancy, but it documents the remarkable rise of WP Rocket. Within two years, the company was able to increase monthly revenues from zero to a stable $45,000.

The income reports include revenues, customer figures, and also detailed insights into the WP Rocket business, in accordance with their transparency policy.

ThemeForest/CodeCanyon

OK, so not really an “income report,” the Envato marketplaces, ThemeForest and CodeCanyon, still make it possible to track what any seller is earning per month.

For a start, there’s a dedicated section on each marketplace, displaying how many sales the top themes and plugins shipped.

You can also manually track a specific seller by visiting the Top Author pages – this one for ThemeForest, this one for CodeCanyon. By keeping a record, you can then calculate how many sales an author made over a particular week or month.

All authors are listed here, so you can calculate approximate earnings for the power-sellers, as well as the more modest-earners.

MatthewWoodward.co.uk

Of course, it’s not just WordPress-based businesses that publish income reports – plenty of other successful online entrepreneurs are happy to do so.

A great example of this is Matthew Woodward. Matt publishes all kinds of internet marketing tutorials on his website, though I would say he is an SEO and affiliate marketing specialist.

His income reports span a period of three years to date, allowing you to trace Matt’s journey from beginner blogger to an award winner earning over $20,000 most months.

Niche Pursuits

Niche Pursuits’ income reports were a great source of inspiration for me when I started using WordPress several years ago. It’s great to see that site owner Spencer Haws continues to publish regular income updates.

Spencer is probably best known as the creator of Long Tail Pro, one of the best keyword research tools available. His income reports, however, cover all manner of projects.

Best of all, they’re completely transparent, guiding readers through the exact steps Spencer took to achieve his results. To date, his projects include niche websites, authority websites, Kindle publishing, and Amazon FBA.

Entrepreneurs on Fire

Standing out from a crowded marketplace is the key to a successful business. John Lee Dumas, the business podcaster behind Entrepreneurs on Fire, understood this concept well, as he set out to create a daily podcast series – a publishing schedule that none of his competitors were even getting close to at the time.

You can follow John’s progress on his blog, where he publishes regular income reports. These days, John earns a cool quarter million dollars each month, and extensively documents his successes and struggles every month.

Back in 2008, Patt was earning a still-impressive $8,000/month. Fast forward to today, and Patt regularly clears the $100,000/month barrier. In fact, in his best month his revenue was a jaw-dropping $153,000.

As one of the top internet marketers in the industry, you can learn a lot from Patt’s blog, and also receive a good injection of inspiration from his income reports.

Authority Website Income

He has documented his successes and failures since the October 2012, sharing his journey to a reliable $15,000/month every step of the way. In that timeframe, Jon has built an impressive 150 websites, and is now pursuing his goal by aggressively purchasing several niche websites each month.

Through his income reports, Jon demonstrates just how much money it’s possible to make by developing a portfolio of niche sites, website acquisition, and better monetizing your portfolio.

Dumb Passive Income

Every month, Matthew shares his successes with his audience, with 33 income reports published to date. Matthew’s online business is only a side hustle, and one which nets him around $3,000/month – not bad at all.

Matthew earns primarily from niche websites, AdSense, and Amazon Affiliates. He’s completely transparent about every arm of his business, so there’s a lot of useful advice published.

Pinch of Yum

Not every WordPress user wants to talk about internet marketing, however. Many use WordPress to power a completely unrelated website. And guess what? Those websites can still earn good money.

Perhaps the best example of this is the fantastic Pinch of Yum – founded by food blogger Lindsay Ostrom. Her website is WordPress-powered and uses the Genesis Framework.

Lindsay monetizes her blog via affiliate commissions, sponsored posts, and eBook sales. Last month, those revenues added up to over $31,000 – after factoring in expenses, her profits were just shy of $25,000.

For any niche site builders out there, Lindsay’s income reports are a must-read.

Income Mesh

Although the eye-watering incomes we’ve covered so far are certainly inspirational, to many newer WordPress users, those results feel unattainable. If you’re struggling to earn your first dollar online, the thought of earning five- or six-figures each month can feel a million miles away.

With this in mind, following along with a less-established blogger’s journey can feel more realistic.

For this reason, I want to throw the Drazen Prastalo’s Income Mesh into the mix. Drazen’s latest income report showed a more modest $500/month, but he’s an internet marketer on the way up.

If you want to see the established bloggers more humble beginnings, be sure to go back through the income report archives to find a time when they were at your level.

Final Thoughts

On one hand, income reports are a great way to attract an interest in your blog, enhance your reputation, and boost traffic. On the other hand, income reports can make your more skeptical visitors view you as egotistical, unrelatable, or an outright liar.

So should you publish an income report on your blog? I can’t answer that question for you, you’ll have to weigh up the pros and cons I’ve listed today. (Want my personal opinion, though? I say go for it!)

Even if you decide not to publish income reports on your blog, you can still use others’ income reports as a source of inspiration, guidance, and even entertainment — personally, I enjoy reading about the progress a blogger is making. With this in mind, be sure to check out the 12 income reports listed today — I’m sure you’ll find something useful!

Do you publish income reports on your blog? If so why? If not, why not? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/editorial/the-pros-and-cons-of-income-reports-and-the-income-reports-you-should-be-following/feed18http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/editorial/the-pros-and-cons-of-income-reports-and-the-income-reports-you-should-be-following10 Actionable Ways To Optimize Your LinkedIn Profilehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/6fralFevcOk/10-actionable-ways-to-optimize-your-linkedin-profile
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/10-actionable-ways-to-optimize-your-linkedin-profile#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 15:00:52 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22185These days, you want to create a LinkedIn profile that will get praise on the web. A profile that will get recruiters to dial your number… a profile that will clog your profile with thousands of InMail messages. Indeed, having a presence on LinkedIn can increase your odds of being recruited. The platform rose to […]

]]>These days, you want to create a LinkedIn profile that will get praise on the web. A profile that will get recruiters to dial your number… a profile that will clog your profile with thousands of InMail messages.

Indeed, having a presence on LinkedIn can increase your odds of being recruited. The platform rose to 300 million members last year, amongst which are individual recruiters and enterprises looking to hire the right fit for their corporations. It’s also intriguing that 89 percent of employers have recruited from the site, so it’s a great opportunity to seek professional roles.

But just filling out a profile is not enough…

If you hope to be on someone’s radar, you’ll have to optimize your presence. The platform offers many overlooked ways to be more discoverable in search results and promote your expertise.

Below then, are 10 tips to craft a LinkedIn presence that will help you attract eyeballs of potential recruiters:

1. Write a robust summary

There’s a space of 2,000 characters to fill up for the summary, so you have the opportunity to list your goals, broader expertise, and success stories. You could also include real-life examples to demonstrate your experience. If you are a graphic designer, you can include a digital clip. If you are an author, you can include a chapter of your publication.

As for the keywords, the most important spots are the Job Titles, Headlines and Skills, but the Summary section counts as well. Mention relevant keywords in this section (without stuffing) while you write a compelling description. Here’s the LinkedIn summary of Cindy King, Director of Editorial at Social Media Examiner:

Start-ups, sales, marketing, social media – the right keywords can be incredibly effective.

Some other things you should do in the Summary section:

Use proper spacing, formatting, and bullets where possible. Don’t fill up the summary with a block of text

Add a CTA (call-to-action) such as contact references and links to other web profile addresses

Display rich media

2. Headline and profile image matters

Headline gives you an opportunity to highlight your experience, so it needs to have something specific than the title of your current profession. LinkedIn will fill this space if you don’t optimize this element by filling the headline with the title of your recent or current role.

You should also note that the professional headline will show up under your name in search engine results. It can be a selling point, so you need to use a variety of terms to show up in a variety of searches. For example, using ‘Graphic Design professional’ as well as ‘Web Design specialist at abc’ will increase your chances of being discovered by recruiters in the same industry.

Example of a bad headline

Example of a good headline

I recommend using the divider symbol (|) to separate titles when listing several expertise in the headline. Also, you should avoid any words like ‘experienced’ as mentioning such words is weak telling.

Next, you should pay attention to your facial appearance as it can affect judgments of traits such as competence and trustworthiness. You should avoid using:

Pixilated or grainy images

Black and white images (without reason)

Self-portrait (snaps taken by holding your arm out)

Instead, you should:

Use natural lightning

A clear light-colored background

Relax your face and expression

As the profile picture is crucial for your personal brand, you can take the option of hiring a professional photographer.

3. Join relevant groups

Discover relevant groups by using industry-specific keywords or via the group memberships your connections have. When you join a group, contribute professionally by sharing your views on a particular topic and start ongoing discussions. And if you’re the founder of a group, you might as well be an active member of it.

You might not know that when you’re a member of the same group as someone else you want to get in touch with, you can message them without the need of being their first-degree connection. Group members are also able to see profiles of fellow members without being connected, so joining more groups will expand your profile visibility and messaging options.

So if you’re a freelance graphic designer, you would join these groups:

Give them a try, and see how joining a group can add a boost to your optimization goals.

4. Use the publishing feature

Wouldn’t you like people to see you as a thought leader as you optimize your profile? LinkedIn’s publishing platform will deliver your content to a network of people seeking professional insight. You can use a tool like BuzzSumo to come up with interesting topics relevant to your profession.

A published post can be viewed by anyone on LinkedIn; think of the platform as a way to showcase your expertise with high-quality information. The added benefit is that LinkedIn articles are ranking well in Google search results.

Published posts are added to your profile, and anyone viewing your profile can see your publications. Even analytics showcasing the number of views, likes and comments are displayed.

Other tips to remember

Use formatting, spacing and best practices like in blog posts

End with a call-to-action

Be consistent with a publishing plan

Participate in comments

If your contribution gets featured on a LinkedIn channel (read about Channels here), you’ll get added exposure.

5. Get endorsements and recommendations

You need to add skills to your profile for optimization and get endorsements for those skills from your connections. LinkedIn will display your top 10 skills based on the number of endorsements, which will help profile viewers know what you excel in. The skills will be displayed in the drop-down menu, and skills that have been endorsed will move to the top.

Endorsing others also helps build strong connections with people in your circle. Usually after endorsing someone, you receive an endorsement and it’s easier to talk to the connection because you’ve been in touch recently. It’s possible to rearrange, edit and remove the skills and corresponding endorsements as well.

Another thing you should do is ask for recommendations from people you’ve worked for or worked with. These recommendations take up important real estate on your profile at the bottom. It serves as a social proof to win over new business; recommendations show what companies you’ve worked with and why they love working with you. Here’s an example of a recommendation given to a graphic designer:

To get high-quality recommendations, you need to:

Ask a team member or employer to recommend you on a specific detail, such as your deadline driven approach

Give recommendations – let the act of giving work out on itself. Recommendations can prompt a positive response, getting you one in return

Only recommendations approved by you will be displayed on your profile.

6. Highlight your achievements

In your profile, you get the option to add your certifications, honors & awards, volunteering experience, publications, projects, and test scores. These credentials will add value to your profile: if you don’t have a job, your volunteering experience will show you have been a part of an organization. If you have a certification that will make you stand out in the competition, display it here. Show prospects what you’ve achieved so far in your life.

You can include a lot of details in each of these sections. For example, publications let you include the URL of the book or website, the excerpt and the title. LinkedIn allows you to add up to 2,000 characters of description to a publication, as well as names of people (if any) associated with the publication.

Likewise, you can list larger initiatives you’ve been a part of in the Projects section. You don’t have to stick to collaborative efforts though; you can too reference your own internal work.

Projects to highlight can include:

Designs developed/managed

Presentations & public speaking

Surveys, webinars & interviews

Training or team-building tasks

While you can list as many publications and projects as you have available, I don’t see it as a necessity. Instead, list the achievements you really want prospective employers to recognize you for.

7. Customize the URL

Similar to other social networks, your LinkedIn profile URL by default contains alphanumerical random characters. However, you can customize the URL of your profile by following these steps:

Open Settings > Edit

Click on Public Profile > Customize Your Public Profile

Select a name you want on the vanity URL

The profile will include your personal name. My recommendation is to keep the vanity URL same for all your social networks, something like ‘facebook.com/danvirgillito’ and ‘linkedin.com/in/danvirgillito’.

Here are the benefits of using vanity URLs:

It enables consistent branding

It creates link trust

It makes you more memorable

LinkedIn users can also use profile badges to promote their profile on personal websites, guest blogs, etc. When users click on those badges, they’ll be redirected to your profile through the vanity URL.

8. Post regular updates

Your status updates will be seen by anyone who views your profile, and these updates will appear in the LinkedIn feed of your connections. Status updates are also included in the email you receive from LinkedIn as the weekly network update. Your latest status update will appear on your profile page. The character limit was changed from 140 characters to long-form for the status.

Status updates are a great way to build a memorable reputation and stay on top of mind of recruiters. Here’s what to share:

Key accomplishments: Something like, “Just received investment advice from xxx; excited about giving it a try!”

Industry insights: According to LinkedIn’s marketing strategy guide, 60 percent members want to look at industry insights over other forms of content

Tips and new trends: Good-quality updates related to your profession will interest others in your industry too. You can write about new trends, share success stories, etc. Search for new trends by following industry publications, Influencers and Pulse

Also, if you can’t post updates in real-time, there is always the option to schedule them. You can use one of these tools:

Buffer: Enables you to schedule statuses at optimal times (for company pages too)

HootSuite: You can schedule updates to be published on your profile, in groups, and company pages

In the ‘your updates’ tab, you can see the summary of all your updates.

With the above-mentioned tabs, you’ll be able to spot any update that was left as a draft and schedule it for later.

9. Incorporate branding

We think highly of people with good company, so increasing your network connections builds your personal brand on LinkedIn. Connect with former classmates, friends, industry leaders, trusted partners and other professionals.

If you want an introduction to someone, ask your connections (1st degree, 2nd degree, etc.) to introduce you as a contact. Profiles with strong and relevant connections (your connections reflect your personality) are always growing.

Another way you can incorporate branding is by customizing your LinkedIn background image. This requires you to upload a custom 1400×425 pixel image. Background is the first thing visitors notice on your profile, along with the profile image, so it is a sign of trust and credibility.

For premium members, it’s possible to choose a default background offered by LinkedIn, but it’s always a better option to upload a custom image. LinkedIn wants you to use a GIF, PNG or JPG image with 4MB being the maximum size.

For the custom image, you can:

Work with a graphic designer

Use tools such as Pic Monkey to create an eye-catching background design

Choose the option that suits your budget.

Note: When deciding what to use as a background image, keep it simple. If your success can be demonstrated with numbers, add them. If you have known clients, add their logos.

10. Be active

Optimization isn’t just about filling all details on your profile; it’s also about being active as a LinkedIn user. This can be done in several ways, such as by using an application to show yourself as an active individual. For example, you can use:

Finally, offering help is crucial. Give out recommendations, congratulate people on their work anniversaries and volunteer your expertise. When people know you can be relied upon, you create a memorable experience, which builds trust and gives you additional recommendations.

Conclusion

With follow through on these tips, you’re likely to receive more interaction and profile views. If you have additional tips about how to optimize a LinkedIn profile, leave a comment below.

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/10-actionable-ways-to-optimize-your-linkedin-profile/feed10http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/10-actionable-ways-to-optimize-your-linkedin-profileHow to Assess and Critique a New Client’s Existing WordPress Sitehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/gmG-z_ZuYpI/how-to-assess-and-critique-a-new-clients-existing-wordpress-site
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-assess-and-critique-a-new-clients-existing-wordpress-site#commentsTue, 28 Jul 2015 15:00:36 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22130Not all clients initially come to you looking for a brand new website. That may be what’s needed, but often the starting point is an existing site. It might be outdated or in a state of disrepair, or maybe it’s built using a theme that’s no longer supported. Landing clients who have an existing WordPress […]

]]>Not all clients initially come to you looking for a brand new website. That may be what’s needed, but often the starting point is an existing site. It might be outdated or in a state of disrepair, or maybe it’s built using a theme that’s no longer supported.

Landing clients who have an existing WordPress site can present a few unique challenges. Not only do you have to sell them on you and your company, you need to sell them on the idea that a new website might actually provide a superior return on their investment.

Your ability to properly critique their existing website is critical to the process of selling them on the benefits of an update. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a mild refresh or a complete redesign, you’ve got an uphill battle to climb if they already have an existing website in place. You’ll need to justify the expense in a way that makes sense to them.

That’s exactly what we’re going to discuss today: How to assess and critique a new client’s website in a way that will make the advantages clear to them and, most importantly, increase your chances of landing the job.

Justify Through ROI

When a potential client comes to you with a new business and no website, they’re not in a position of having to justify the expense. They already know they need a site, it’s just a matter of deciding who will build it. Sell them on your ability to solve their problem and you’ve got yourself a new client.

But when a client comes to you with an existing website, they usually have questions about how a redesign might benefit them. This can make the sales process more challenging. They’ll be asking:

Is their existing website good enough to get the job done?

Will a new website help them build their business?

Could the money possibly be used more efficiently elsewhere?

Before they can make a decision, you’ll need to help them answer these questions and more.

So which areas should you focus on when reviewing their website? Any area where you think you can improve their return on investment. Demonstrate how a redesign will help them attract more customers or sales. In theory, the rest of the process should be easy.

Let’s take a look at some key areas where you might be able to score some quick wins or even make a dramatic improvement in the results your new clients are seeing.

Appearance, Layout and User Experience

There’s never a second chance to make a first impression – or so they say. Generally this holds true for websites as well. When you first visit your client’s website, make note of your initial impressions. What’s your gut feeling? Chances are, their prospects and customers feel the same way.

Next, put yourself in the shoes of a real visitor, because this is who the website should be built for:

Beyond the obvious navigation, general layout and color selection, does the site feel intuitive? Are things where you’d expect them to be? More specifically, is the existing design trying too hard to be creative at the expense of simplicity?

If your client’s website already looks like muse – with clear navigation and a striking call to action – you might be in trouble.

Remember, not every visitor is as tech-savvy as you are. Make sure you’re looking at the website from the perspective of the end user. A financial planning website for baby-boomers must be clear and easy to navigate. A website built for gamers probably has a little more leeway with creativity.

It’s obvious but it’s often overlooked. Basically what it means is that if your site is too different than the average of other websites, you might not be presenting a great user experience.

Web design is not the same as graphic design. You’re not creating a piece of art, you’re creating something that needs to be functional and user-friendly.

You can find more fascinating information on evidence-based user experience over at the Nielsen Norman Group.

Improving the U/X of your client’s site – especially if it’s poor to begin with – can have a dramatic effect on the results they’ll achieve. It’s one of the first things you should be looking at.

Messaging and Content

Having assessed the user experience, the next item to consider is the message and content of the site, particularly on the home page.

We all know by now that your client’s visitors might (if you’re lucky) grant ten seconds to confirm that they’re in the right place. Your client’s website must present a clear message in order to maximize their results. Here are some key points you should look at closely:

Is the text on the homepage clean and simple? There should be a distinct lack of clutter and excess messaging. Is the font large enough to be easily read and do the headlines stand out?

Is it clear what the website is about? When considering the ten-second rule, this is one of those areas where there should be no doubt in the visitor’s mind. What does your client’s business do and who do they do it for?

As a visitor, are your most important questions answered quickly? We’ve all visited a website and experienced the frustration of having to search for pricing or detailed information on services. Those are the types of situations you want to avoid. It’s one thing to answer questions through blog content, but make sure that there are links on the homepage that lead directly to the answers that a new visitor might seek. This is where it really helps to have a thorough understanding of your client’s business as well as their customers.

Is there a reasonable degree of transparency? Meaning, who is behind the business? A simple about page is fine as long as it contains the information that people are looking for. In almost all cases, this includes a photo and a brief bio. It’s always nice to know who you’re doing business with, wouldn’t you agree?

Yes, it’s a fictitious law firm, but its message, typography and content grabs your attention right away. Great contrast, a clean and simple font and striking imagery practically guarantees the visitors will take some time to learn more.

Optimize for Conversions

You might be thinking that making sure your client’s site is optimized for conversions should be one of the first things you assess, but it’s not. For the simple reason that if the other ducks are not in order (meaning a clean, user-friendly website with clear messaging), then what’s the point of optimizing?

Optimization for conversions means making sure your client’s website serves a purpose – it doesn’t necessarily mean a big red “BUY NOW” button – although your end objective for the visitor should be clear.

If your client is a physiotherapist, they’ll want to book appointments; a lawyer will want to book a free consultation; a real-estate agent might be looking to capture an email address for anyone interested in the local market. Whatever qualifies as a conversion for your particular client, make sure their website is 100% focused on achieving that objective. Everything else is just noise.

Slack presents a clear call-to-action right next to their primary value-proposition. You’ll waste no time figuring out how to signup.

Conversion and conversion optimization is an area where you’ll find a large percentage of client’s websites to be lacking. There will be no CTA and no clear purpose. Or, you might find that their website asks visitors to choose between multiple actions – a sure fire way to achieve nothing at all. If you have a new client whose existing site is not set up to convert, you have an opportunity to pick some low-hanging fruit.

If possible, refer to their analytics when you start talking about the potential to increase conversions. If your client is receiving qualified traffic to their website, show them actual numbers and present ideas that could improve their conversions. How would each additional conversion benefit them and how quickly could they cover their costs?

Perform a Basic SEO Audit

Even if you don’t provide extensive SEO services as part of your day-to-day business, it’s still worth performing a basic audit of your client’s SEO – both on-page and off-page. It’s unusual not to find a least a few glaring problems that allow for some quick, easy wins.

For example, you might discover that your client has multiple unverified Google My Business Pages. Maybe they set one up and forgot, or maybe an employee set one up as part of their personal profile. Consolidating and verifying their pages could provide an instant boost to their local rankings.

Here are a few other things to look for:

Does their website have an appropriate site title and meta description?

Are the major pages of their site optimized with an appropriate title, meta description, and content?

Is their permalink structure set-up properly?

If they’re a brick-and-mortar business, is their address and contact information in the footer of each page?

Is their NAP (name, address and phone number) consistent across all their profiles (website, social & business listings)?

Obviously, this is not a complete list – that would be a post in and of itself. But it’s a starting point, and if you find problems here, you’ll likely find more as you dig a little deeper.

It’s also worth mentioning the trap of over-optimization. If your new client has come to you with an existing website that’s more than a few years old, there is a good chance their SEO tactics are out of date. Look for keyword stuffing, along with ridiculously long titles and meta descriptions that resemble a short essay.

Present Solutions to Problems

Once you’ve taken the time to gather and prepare all the relevant information, arrange a time to meet with your client. You might be thinking – and correctly so – that it’s easier to just email your assessment in a nicely prepared PDF file. It also allows your client to review the document at their leisure. Wrong. By doing it this way, not only will you be at the mercy of your client’s timetable, you risk losing the opportunity to speak to them at all.

Here are the steps I would recommend instead:

Perform your analysis and critique.

Assemble all of your findings into a simple PDF document.

Get in touch with your client to arrange a time to meet (in person or over the phone).

Kick-off your meeting with a quick review of your report before jumping into a more detailed analysis.

Use screen sharing to properly cover each applicable point or if meeting in person, bring your laptop.

By running your appointments this way, you’re providing fewer ways for your prospect to back out of the meeting at the last second. Using a screen also allows them to have a visual perspective – vital for someone who doesn’t necessarily understand the terminology you’ll be using. Show them some competitors who are outranking them and present some reasons why that might be happening. Show them what you can do to improve their situation.

Conclusion

The first important point we’ve touched on in this post is that the process of selling a client on a first website is different than that of selling them on a refresh or redesign.

A client who is looking to beef up or revamp their online presence will need more help justifying the expense. They’re not faced with start-up expenses anymore; they’re dealing with overhead, marketing budgets, payroll, and other expenditures. Any capital they are going to invest in a website will require a corresponding return on their investment.

Focus on where their existing website falls short. Where can you make improvements, and how will those improvements benefit their bottom line?

What kinds of challenges have you faced when sending proposals to clients who already have an existing website? What are some of the objections you had to deal with? Let us know in the comments!

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-assess-and-critique-a-new-clients-existing-wordpress-site/feed7http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-assess-and-critique-a-new-clients-existing-wordpress-site3 Stock Video Sites for a Media Hungry Worldhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/7c4hkNJiRmM/3-stock-video-sites-for-a-media-hungry-world
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/3-stock-video-sites-for-a-media-hungry-world#commentsMon, 27 Jul 2015 15:00:46 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22149The internet: not an insignificant invention, you’d have to agree. Many might say that it’s reducing its users’ attention spans however, and it’s clear that it doesn’t engage everyone to the same extent as other media may be able to. Take Facebook as a prime example, where engagement on images is much greater than other […]

]]>The internet: not an insignificant invention, you’d have to agree. Many might say that it’s reducing its users’ attention spans however, and it’s clear that it doesn’t engage everyone to the same extent as other media may be able to.

Take Facebook as a prime example, where engagement on images is much greater than other types of post. A visitor’s engagement with content is what keeps them around to do whatever it is you want them to do, and presenting it in a way that makes them pay attention is a vital skill.

In this article we’re going to show you the importance of utilizing different types of media, and reveal three stock video sites that you can take advantage of today.

Why is Engaging Media Important?

For anyone who makes and publishes any sort of content, it is undoubtedly important to ensure the message being conveyed gets out to the intended audience. People on the web are pretty quick in deciding whether they want to stick around to finish content, whether that be a written article like this, a video clip, or a podcast.

Essentially, the two options for making certain that your message is heard are to:

make it very short, or

engage the readers.

Every site has different aims, but one fairly universal way to grab visitors’ attention and keep them there is through video. Combinations of moving image, audio and (sometimes) text – a short video presentation has everything going for it in terms of multimedia.

With improvements in the hardware used to deliver online content, pretty much every internet user is now capable of accessing high-quality streamed videos, and huge numbers do so regularly through popular sites like YouTube or Netflix. People actively choose to do this: If you can tap into that, you’ll have all the attention you could want.

How to Create Engaging Videos

Like any other content on the web, quality is king when it comes to getting people to stick around. There are three steps to consider when creating a video:

Plan your message. What is it you want this video to convey to its audience? It’s important to get this clear from the beginning so any subsequent work you do is targeted at making the video a success.

Plan the presentation. By this I mean making sure you’ve got a clear idea of what’s going to surround the video once it’s uploaded. Presumably it’ll go on YouTube (that’s pretty much the default!), so figure out what its description will be, for instance. If it’s going to be embedded on a website, will it have any content around it? Develop these ideas with retention in mind – once you’ve got someone on a web page they’ll be much more likely to stay, but getting that initial hook is the crucial and most difficult part.

Plan the video. Creativity is very much favourable at this stage. Don’t be afraid to be relatively ambitious – even if you haven’t got huge financial or technical resources available, there’s a way to get your hands on footage that it wouldn’t be feasible to film yourself: stock video.

Just like the many stock image sites with thousands of generic images for any use, there is a huge variety of stock footage sites with pretty much anything you could need when creating a video. With all the planning that has been put into coming up with awesome video concepts, it’s a shame not to use the best quality footage. It’s worth checking out some different sites and footage to find the very best for your video.

The Best Stock Video Sites

Choosing sites from which to license content is crucial; getting the choice of footage right will make the difference between a compelling video that attracts visitors to remain on your site, and one that simply turns visitors away. Plenty of sites have some similar features, but here are three with extras that are really worth consideration.

1. Dissolve

Dissolve is a stock footage site with over 700,000 high quality (including 4K) clips for sale, generally aimed at users requiring the highest quality footage for web advertising, etc.

The experience of using the site is great and the videos available are varied; one of the best things about Dissolve is its more ‘holistic’ approach. It provides inspiration through its ideas blog, and live help is available from its customer service team through a useful little widget on the site.

The variety, quality and suggestions should enable anyone using Dissolve to produce something really special to reel in their viewers.

2. Getty Images

Getty is one of the best-known providers of stock images out there, with many news articles’ images sourced from the site. Lesser known but also extensive is its footage section. With its easy to navigate layout, browsing and purchasing licences from the site is straightforward, while finding what you’re after is made easy by the excellent search functionality as well as collections put together on the site. Certain collections on the site, such as the BBC’s Motion Gallery, are an especially valuable set of videos.

Getty also makes it easy to find the best video quality, with visible tagging and a number of different resolutions available (upon which pricing also depends, allowing a look in for smaller budgets too).

3. Shutterstock

With nearly three million clips at the time of writing, Shutterstock is a very reliable site with an extensive choice of good-value clips. With differentiation in pricing for different uses and needs, like Getty, Shutterstock creates a marketplace in which many needs can be fulfilled. Discounts apply when several clips are bought, making it ideal if you can find all of the clips you need in its directory.

Moreover, the site provides music as well; useful when looking to add to the effect of your video.

A Word on Free Footage

As WordPress users here, we’re never against free things – but then, when we license our themes, we charge a fee. There is a limited amount of free footage available online which can be used if you’re really tight on cash. However, ensuring that quality doesn’t noticeably suffer is vital here. If at all possible, it might be worth investing in (potentially shorter) higher-quality clips to make sure the video is produced optimally.

Other Tips on Video Success

As mentioned earlier, one of the most important parts of videos – particularly those in which stock footage is used – is planning. Another significant way to get ahead during this stage is to research. It’s worth noting that one should never directly copy what someone else has done (especially not competitors – you want to stand out), but looking at other similar projects and noting what you think is done well will enable you to improve your own video.

Here are a few more things you should consider:

Add music or other sound effects to enhance the video (but make sure it fits with the style).

Ensure a coherent theme or ‘look’ runs throughout the videos – especially any series. Continuity is nice for visitors who keep coming back.

Edit your video as professionally as possible. Investing in some software to make it look pretty is generally worth it for the returns.

Present the video with other compelling content. Calls to action are great – there’s little point in getting visitors if they’re then left with nothing to act on – and other complementary writing doesn’t go amiss.

That’s a Wrap

Video is a fantastic tool to engage with new and existing visitors, and it is ultra-shareable on all sorts of social networking sites too. Even if you don’t have the budget to jet off with expensive camera equipment to capture a few seconds’ worth of footage, stock video opens up new worlds of opportunities because other people have done the hard part for you.

There’s a vast selection out there already, with thousands more videos being uploaded for browsing and licensing every day from a number of providers. Even better, all of them have developed some fantastically robust systems for delivering that content for you in as affordable a manner as is sustainable.

Making the investment in different multimedia to get more people engaging with your content and message will pay off if done well – and there are lots of different ways to try presenting your ideas. Creativity is key and if viewers like what you’re doing, they’ll stick around.

All that’s left is to wish you happy browsing and the best of luck with the tools you’re now equipped with to engage a wider audience for longer! Oh, and once more: remember to plan – it’s quite crucial.

If you’ve got any of your own stock footage creations to share or have found any especially good examples from others, it’d be great to see them down in the comments!

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/3-stock-video-sites-for-a-media-hungry-world/feed12http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/3-stock-video-sites-for-a-media-hungry-worldInstant HD Videos Now a Reality (But Does Your WordPress Site Need Them?)http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/QD0LmzbYzmE/instant-hd-videos-now-a-reality-but-does-your-wordpress-site-need-them
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/instant-hd-videos-now-a-reality-but-does-your-wordpress-site-need-them#commentsSun, 26 Jul 2015 15:00:33 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22176Making the leap from written content to video on your website can feel like a scary proposition. But there is no getting around the fact that the use of video is becoming more the rule than the exception. What was once only possible using expensive high-end equipment has now become commonplace, with virtually everyone with a […]

]]>Making the leap from written content to video on your website can feel like a scary proposition. But there is no getting around the fact that the use of video is becoming more the rule than the exception. What was once only possible using expensive high-end equipment has now become commonplace, with virtually everyone with a smartphone being able to create beautiful HD videos.

It has become increasingly easy to upload, edit and embed videos in WordPress over the past few years. But do you really need to include HD video – or for that matter, any video – on your website? Isn’t it just easier to stick with good old-fashioned text and images?

In many ways, yes, it is easier. But easier isn’t always better. Visitors to your website have come to expect an interactive experience, and it’s up to you to deliver it. Plus, if you look around at some of your competition, you’ll probably find at least a few examples where video is being used effectively. If by some small stroke of luck you notice that your competitors haven’t jumped on the video bandwagon, you’ve found yourself a great way to stand out from the crowd.

In this post, we’re going to focus on the importance of using HD video on your website, then explore several hosting options.

A Brief History of Video on the Web

We’ve come a long way since Severe Tire Damage was first performed live on the Internet back in 1993. Rumor has it their brief performance, which relied on “new” multicast technology, required one-half of the Internet’s total available bandwidth. Can you imagine?

Fast forwarding just over 12 years, in 2005, we saw the official debut of YouTube along with co-founder Jawed Karim’s first video taken at the San Diego Zoo. From this point onward, the popularity of online video has soared beyond what anyone ever expected. Back in 2008, The Telegraph reported that the internet might actually grind to a halt under the pressure of demand for online video. Thankfully, that never happened.

comScore recently reported that 192 million Americans watched online videos via desktop computer in November 2014. But how does that affect your business? A report on Reach Engine states that of over 1,000 people surveyed, six in ten adults will watch a video when visiting a company website, and four in ten prefer video over written content. It’s a pretty convincing argument in favor of integrating HD video on your website, no?

Four Reasons Why You Should Consider Using HD Video

There are many reasons you should consider making video a part of your website. The four reasons below focus on things that are going to help you build your business. It’s not about flashiness or becoming the next YouTube celebrity; it’s about attracting more customers and communicating more effectively with the ones you already have.

1. Improved Email Click-Through Rates

eMarketer reports that in 2013, emails with links to videos resulted in:

55% increase in click-through rates

44% increase in the amount of time spent reading email

41% increase in the amount of sharing or forwarding of emails

Those are some pretty convincing statistics. It might be time to consider integrating links to video within your emails.

Another great idea, since actually playing a video within an email is not well supported, is to use an animated GIF within your message that links back to a relevant video. Dell saw a nice revenue lift after incorporating a short GIF into their email campaign that demonstrated the functionality of their tablet.

2. Your Engagement Goes Through the Roof

The Content Marketing Institute wrote a great article that discusses how your audience is ten times more likely to engage with video than other forms of content.

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense – especially if you appear in your videos. It gives you an opportunity to present yourself to customers and clients in a very personal way.

And, of course, there is always the off chance that with a little creativity, one of your videos could go viral. For example, Dollar Shave Club reportedly spent less than $5,000 on their promotional video that so far has received over 19 million views. Even more amazing is that within 48 hours of releasing the video, they had over 12,000 people sign up for the service.

3. You Can Say More in Less Time

Not only is video more engaging than text alone, using HD video on your website allows you to say more in less time. Plus, you’ll reduce the chances of your visitor missing important information because they skimmed over it.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking video has the ability to capture too much of your visitors time. Just because you have the opportunity to say more does not mean you should. After analyzing the top 50 YouTube videos, Adweek discovered that the average length was just two minutes and 54 seconds.

The message is clear: keep your videos short and sweet.

4. Better Search Engine Optimization

Creating videos for YouTube is a great way to improve your search visibility. Yes, you can use other video hosting platforms as well (which we’ll touch on shortly), but YouTube remains the best option if your focus is on improving visibility. Phil Nottingham wrote a great post over on Moz.com that explains the relationship between YouTube and search engines. And you guessed it, there’s an accompanying video that’s worth watching as well.

Once you feel like you’ve got a handle on video production and editing, take some time to learn more about how to optimize your videos for search. You can bet that most of your competition won’t bother with this step.

Hosting Your Videos

Deciding where to host your videos can present some confusing options. On the one hand, we have the 500lb gorilla – YouTube. On the other, we have some of the smaller, but often higher quality hosts such as Vimeo, Wistia, and SproutVideo.

But as a business owner, how do you decide which hosting service you should integrate with your WordPress site? Let’s cover the options:

YouTube

YouTube is the player to beat in this space, and rightly so. They offer some distinct competitive advantages that deserve your attention.

With over one billion users and 300 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, the word ‘massive’ is an understatement. But that’s a double-edged sword – with so many users and so many new videos, it’s easy to for your business to become lost in the sea of new content.

However, keep in mind that more often than not, you’ll be embedding videos on your website for visitors, rather than making them click through to your YouTube channel. So for you, this might be a moot point. On the other hand, if you’re using YouTube as part of your SEO strategy, you’ll want to brush up on your knowledge tactics. Making your video stand out on the platform has some longer-term benefits as well.

Here are a few important points about YouTube:

It’s free.

You don’t own the platform or your channel.

You can advertise your content.

Competitors often show up right next to your videos.

You can easily embed your videos directly on your WordPress site.

The average quality of comments on is not likely something you want associated with your business.

Wistia

Wistia is a popular video platform for online marketers due to the user-friendly features they have built into their platform. Like Sprout (below), their paid plans start at $25/month, although you have to jump up to their $100/month plan if you want access to advanced analytics and lead generations tools. From a marketing perspective, those features are pretty critical if you’re relying heavily on video.

More about Wistia:

Like the other platforms, it’s compatible with all devices.

They automatically match bandwidth with video quality.

The player is highly customizable and unbranded.

Analytics and engagement data is readily available.

All videos are SEO friendly.

Vimeo

Vimeo provides an ad-free environment for a cost-effective fee of just $19/month. Yes, that’s exactly $19 more than YouTube, but the lack of advertising alone can make that fee worth it. Vimeo, although nowhere near the same size as YouTube, provides a more professional feel and less competition.

Although Vimeo offers full SEO visibility, Google continues to favor displaying YouTube videos in the SERPs. Also be aware that if you require HTTPs, it appears that Vimeo is still dealing with some issues on this front.

A few key facts about Vimeo:

Their Pro plan costs a reasonable $19/month.

Their videos are fully embeddable on your WordPress site.

Videos are compatible on all devices.

You have the capability of selling your videos.

They support third-party video players.

They offer full workflow and video management tools.

SproutVideo

With plans starting at $25/month – reasonable for most small businesses – Sprout is another viable option for hosting your videos. They offer features that should keep most marketers happy. Long term, the biggest drawback is the fact that your storage is capped at 100GB. That said, if you’ve used up all that space, you’re probably serious enough about video production that you can move up to the next tier.

Sprout also offers a bucket of other great features including:

Password protected videos.

The ability to make your videos playable only on your domain.

Full analytics (although limited with the basic plan).

Integrated Disqus comments.

An unbranded and customizable player.

Dozens more features including email opt-ins.

Conclusion

I think we’ve removed pretty much all doubt as to whether or not you should consider making HD video part of your website strategy. Adding regular video content to your WordPress site offers some major advantages over text alone. Despite the fact that you’re seeing video everywhere, its use is still relatively uncommon amongst small businesses. It can be an easy way to set yourself apart from your local competition.

When it comes to hosting your videos, there is no perfect answer. You need to pick a service that is affordable for your business and that provides the features you require. YouTube offers some distinct visibility benefits, but consider the use of two platforms if the advertising becomes a concern.

My last piece of advice is to start small – even if that means sticking to a free plan, or just YouTube. As you get more comfortable with the medium, you can add features as required and increase your video production efforts.

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/instant-hd-videos-now-a-reality-but-does-your-wordpress-site-need-them/feed13http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/instant-hd-videos-now-a-reality-but-does-your-wordpress-site-need-themHow to Create a Laser Focused Marketing Campaign for Your WordPress Businesshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/xmPQ4XoY6Qo/how-to-create-a-laser-focused-marketing-campaign-for-your-wordpress-business
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-create-a-laser-focused-marketing-campaign-for-your-wordpress-business#commentsSat, 25 Jul 2015 15:00:35 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22188All bark, no bite. That about sums up the average marketing campaign for a small business. A great marketing campaign isn’t just about planning. Nor is is all about taking action. Your best chance of creating a campaign that that works is by finding the correct balance between targeting, planning, execution and refinement. Sure, sometimes […]

]]>All bark, no bite. That about sums up the average marketing campaign for a small business. A great marketing campaign isn’t just about planning. Nor is is all about taking action. Your best chance of creating a campaign that that works is by finding the correct balance between targeting, planning, execution and refinement.

Sure, sometimes it’s lack of effort that causes you to cede victory, but more often than not the first thing your should be looking at is your lack of focus – to achieve your goal (you have one right?) will require a single-minded effort that puts all your marketing resources into action at the same time and with the same target in mind.

That’s what we’re going to cover in this post. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working solo or with a small team. With a little effort, planning, focus, and execution, you can assemble a marketing campaign that actually has a purpose.

For our example, we’re going to reference techniques and terminology that are geared towards creating an inbound campaign. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take these principles and apply them to an outbound campaign, or even integrate them into a hybrid campaign that combines the best of both worlds.

We’re not really covering specific tactics per se, in this post. It more about how to tie together all the big pieces.

Enough waffle, let’s get started.

Simplicity Rules the Roost

Spend 10 minutes searching Google and you’ll soon find yourself facing information overwhelm. Every website you visit seems to have a slightly different version of how to put together the ideal marketing campaign. But is any one method really better than another? And what makes for a successful plan in the first place?

If you find yourself creating marketing campaigns that never seem to get off the ground or produce the desired results, you might be making things more complicated than they actually need to be. No fancy three-ring binders or 20-page campaigns here.

There is a lot to be said for creating a simple 1-2 page plan in point form. If you put aside the technical jargon and fancy tools you’ll find it easier. Focus on simplicity and before you know it you’ll have an actionable plan that is capable of producing real results.

Determine Your Objective

We’ve all heard of SMART goals, right?

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time-Sensitive

Chances are you understand these well enough that there is no need dwell on them. Instead, let’s just cover a few key points that are important to remember.

First, while it’s a good idea to create goals or objectives that are specific, measurable and attainable, don’t forget to make sure they’re relevant as well.

That means understanding what’s important to your business. The campaigns you create should be focused on activities that will help you build your business. Specifically, new leads & new clients.

But what about building a social following? Sure, that can be valuable as well, provided your followers are also prospective clients. Creating a marketing campaign with the objective of increasing your social media status means nothing if those followers never stand a chance of converting to clients.

The second-point worth remembering is that you’re probably planning to be in business for the long-term. Yes? Most of the time, your marketing campaigns should reflect this. Accept the fact that attracting new clients is often a long, slow process which involves developing a relationship first.

Don’t set goals that are unrealistic or so time-sensitive that your campaign doesn’t stand a chance of being successful. If you create success, you’ll be able to build upon it.

Identify and Target Your Audience

There have been a few posts recently on the Elegant Theme’s blog that discuss picking a niche and developing an accurate customer persona as part of that process. This process is not something we need to cover again here in great detail. What’s more important is taking that information and learning to create a campaign that properly targets your audience.

Laser focused means knowing exactly who you’re speaking to. When you developed your personas, you likely came up with more than one. But don’t make the mistake of creating a marketing campaign that takes a shotgun approach. Instead, focus on a single, clearly defined customer persona.

For example, let’s imagine most of your clients are in the medical field. Dentists, physicians, surgeons, and chiropractors. Do you design a marketing campaign that targets Dr’s? No. Instead, you’d target:

Female

Plastic Surgeons

Located in California

Between the ages of 32 and 45

Who have children under the age of 10

Who have a business presence on Facebook & Twitter

Who currently have a website that is out of date and poorly optimized

Who don’t have the time to properly design, build and manage a digital presence

If you’ve been building WordPress sites for any length of time, you’re probably faced with choosing from multiple personas. There is no tried and true answer when it comes to picking the best one. But a good place to start is somewhere where you’ve already experienced success.

Why pick a new target if you’ve already found something that’s working? As long as you feel like there is still potential, stick with what you know.

The Importance of Planning

Image by pixome / shutterstock.com

We all understand the importance of planning and there is no doubt that building a marketing campaign requires a healthy dose of just that.

In our first few steps, you identified who your target is and where they can be found (ie. Facebook & Twitter). While that is definitely a critical step, there’s still lots of hard work to do. You need to figure out how you’re going to grab their attention and hopefully move them into your established sales funnel.

Part of the challenge, when it comes time to execute your marketing campaign, is putting all of the pieces together. Make sure you’re doing the right things at the right time and that all your efforts are focused upon a single purpose. Proper planning can solve that challenge.

If we assume you’re going to stick with our original idea of creating an inbound campaign, you’ll want to make sure you’ve prepared the following before you launch:

Create any social media posts that will be required – load your tweets and posts into a spreadsheet.

Create any required graphics.

Finally, make sure you have a system in place to measure your results.

As part of your planning process, you should decide how and when you’ll execute each step. When will you publish posts? What hours of the day will you promote via social? If outreach will be used, who, when and how will you target?

And, of course, you can change the type of campaign if you want – maybe outbound is more your thing. You’ll have to adjust the individual steps, but the process remains the same.

This is no different than making sure you’ve got all the pieces to a puzzle before you start putting it together. If you’re going to be focused in your efforts, you can’t be scrambling for a few missing pieces once the process has started.

Execute on Your Plan

Image by Bakhtiar Zein / shutterstock.com

In a lot of ways, unless you’re a huge fan of planning, execution is the fun part of the process. It’s where you get to put all the pieces to together and (fingers crossed) reap the rewards.

But just because it’s fun it doesn’t mean it’s time to let your guard down. The last thing you want to do is spend time creating a plan and then execute it poorly.

To avoid any unforeseen problems, now is a great time make sure you’re familiar with the tools you’ll be using. If you’re fan of Hootsuite or Buffer for your social media, make sure you’re comfortable with their functionality.

Tweeting a broken link or adding a group of prospects to the wrong watch list is no way to kick off your campaign. Neither is forgetting to turn on your auto-responder only to discover the problem a week after 5 prospects signed up for a lead magnet that never arrived. Check and recheck for any potential problems or oversights.

A highly focused plan means doing the right things at the right times. If you start each day unsure of what action you should take or what tools you should be using, you can expect your results to be equally scattered.

Measure and Adapt

Once of the worst things you can do when planning your campaign is to make assumptions. There is no hard, fast rule that tells you what will and what won’t work. Just because a competitor managed to pull off a successful twitter campaign, doesn’t mean you’ll be able to do the same. And just because your customer persona was wrong last time, doesn’t mean it won’t be spot-on this time around.

All of these unknowns are what make the process of measuring and adapting so important. Step number seven above said you should have a system in place to track and measure your results. Until that system is in place, don’t do a thing.

You want to remove as many of your biases as possible and the best way to do that is by making decisions based upon numbers and data instead of gut feelings.

If you see that something isn’t working, never be afraid to make a change. That’s how the most effective marketing campaigns in the world are built – through testing, measuring and re-testing, over and over again.

What can you test? Everything. The copy and pictures you’re using in ads, the time of day you post to social media, the headlines on your landing pages and the color of your forms. Nothing is off limits.

Conclusion

We’ve covered some of the most important steps when it comes to creating a highly focused marketing campaign. One of the biggest lessons, hopefully, is that it’s not about the fancy tools or how you can automate the process.

It’s about standing back, looking at the big picture – as if it were a map – and knowing exactly where you’re going and how you will get there. Plan your route, then execute. But don’t forget to plug in your GPS because you want to know how far you’ve traveled with the ability to make corrections along the way.

What are some of the steps you take before launching a marketing campaign? Have you found that focusing your campaigns on a specific persona makes a difference? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

]]>http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-create-a-laser-focused-marketing-campaign-for-your-wordpress-business/feed4http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-create-a-laser-focused-marketing-campaign-for-your-wordpress-businessThe Essential Plugins for WordPress Business Websiteshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ElegantThemes/~3/BCtVm2xPnoY/the-essential-plugins-for-wordpress-business-websites
http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/resources/the-essential-plugins-for-wordpress-business-websites#commentsFri, 24 Jul 2015 15:00:21 +0000http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/?p=22105Just a few decades ago, if you needed to find a local business, you’d probably open up the phone book. These days, you’re almost certain to turn online. There are two major consequences of our changing behaviors: The slow death of the phone book industry. The fundamental importance of a business’s website to its overall […]

]]>Just a few decades ago, if you needed to find a local business, you’d probably open up the phone book. These days, you’re almost certain to turn online.

There are two major consequences of our changing behaviors:

The slow death of the phone book industry.

The fundamental importance of a business’s website to its overall success.

Today, of course, we’re going to be focusing on the latter.

If you own a business, your website is, more often than not, the place your customers will find out about you – who you are, how to find you, the services/products you offer. As such, you could argue that your website is one of the most important aspects of your business to get right.

But what does a business website need? What functionalities should it support?

If you want to know the answer to these questions, read on! Today, I’m going to introduce you to 16 WordPress plugins for business websites.

To avoid listing too many similar plugins, I’ve decided to focus on one plugin for each functionality, which means I’ll be providing the full spectrum of business website functionalities.

The plugins I’ve picked are all targeted at businesses with an offline presence, but many of them will be equally applicable to online businesses and even bloggers. With this in mind, there should be something for all WordPress users listed here.

Sound good? Then let’s get started.

SEO: SEO by Yoast (FREE)

Looking to enhance your search engine rankings to attract more visitors? It all starts with on-site optimization.

I strongly recommend that all WordPress websites install an all-in-one SEO plugin. My personal choice would be WordPress SEO by Yoast – and with over 19.5 million downloads, there’s a lot of WordPress users in agreement.

The plugin allows you to work through a pre-configured SEO checklist to ensure you’re fulfilling all SEO best practices. Included in the plugin’s impressive list of features is custom meta descriptions, XML sitemap creation, and RSS optimization.

As Dan stated in his recent post on boosting eCommerce conversions, to boost total conversions you need to find new visitors or increase your conversion rate. Well, SEO by Yoast focuses on the former, attracting the new visitors you need to boost overall conversions and your business’s bottom line. Not bad for a free plugin, huh?

Local SEO, Maps, and Schema Markup: Yoast Local SEO (from $69)

If you have an offline, brick-and-mortar presence, the SEO rules are slightly different. Certain businesses will only have a local reach, so it’s fundamentally important that your website appears for local searchers.

Type “hairdressers” into Google to see what I mean. The top results will not be international or even national, but businesses local to you. All of this happens automatically, reflecting the needs of the searcher.

If you want your business featured in local searches, I recommend another Yoast SEO plugin: Local SEO.

As well as this, Local SEO allows you to add your company’s address and opening hours onto your contact page. The plugin will convert this information into the relevant Schema.org markup, allowing Google to display this information as a rich snippet alongside your search result.

You can also use Local SEO to add Google Maps to your website, which saves you the trouble of installing a dedicated Google Maps plugin.

If you run a local business, don’t underestimate the importance of targeting local search results — consider the plugin’s $69 price tag to be an investment.

Speed: WP Rocket (from $39)

The speed of your website impacts user experience and also where you rank in the SERPs – Google consistently re-iterates that speed is a ranking factor. As such, I strongly recommend that you take website speed seriously. After all, do you really want your brand associated with a sluggish website?

There are loads of plugins that target different elements of a website’s speed. If you want an all-in-one solution, however, WP Rocket is a great option.

WP Rocket can reel off a long list of features, including:

Page caching

Browser caching

GZIP compression

Minification

LazyLoad

Image optimization

Seamless integration with CDNs, including free solutions like CloudFlare

That means that all the important speed optimization functionality your business website needs is fully supported. Remember: fast website = happy customers.

Social Media: Monarch Social Media Sharing (Elegant Theme Membership)

The search engines aren’t the only way for people to find you. If you publish compelling content and your customers love what you do, you can attract a lot of traffic via the social channels.

This requires a social media plugin, of course. I know I’m biased, but, even objectively speaking, Elegant Theme’s Monarch plugin is one of the very best social media plugins available.

Monarch allows you to add colorful, stylish social sharing buttons to your website. You can add the sharing buttons in five different locations, plus there’s an impressive 20+ social networks supported so that you can target all the main social channels.

The plugin has minimal impact on load times, plus you can monitor your social sharing figures via the comprehensive dashboard statistics.

Page Builder: Visual Composer ($33)

Many potential customers will get their first impression of your business from your website. With this in mind, you need a website that looks stunning, is memorable, and reflects all of your core values. And, despite thousands of WordPress themes in existence, does any theme really encapsulate all of your business’s ideals? I doubt it.

If you want the flexibility to build your perfect business website, you have three options:

Hire a developer to make custom changes

Use a multi-purpose theme

Install a page builder plugin

As we’re focusing on plugins today, I’m going to be taking a look at the latter. And, with almost 80,000 sales (making it CodeCanyon’s best-selling plugin of all time), I’m going to recommend Visual Composer.

Visual Composer allows you to construct beautiful custom layouts with either the front- or back-end editor. There are 40+ predefined layouts and 45+ content elements to choose from, giving you the flexibility you need to add the aesthetics and functionality your pages need. As a result of its popularity, there are many third-party Visual Composer extensions available, allowing you to add even more content elements.

Security: iThemes Security Pro (from $80)

If you want your website to grow and thrive, you need to defend it from the most common security vulnerabilities.

Perhaps website security lacks the glamour of some of the other functionalities featured today, but it’s arguably the most important of all. This is especially true for business websites, as security breaches reflect badly on your brand.

iThemes Security Pro helps protect your website from the most common security breach: brute force attacks. This is achieved by enforcing strong passwords, hiding your login page, and also restricting the number of failed login attempts.

You can also use the plugin to lock out bad users, notify you of any file changes, and lock your WordPress admin area during hours you know you won’t be using it.

Back-up: VaultPress (from $5/month)

A broken website – or, worse still, a crashed website – is not the best first impression, is it?

When things go wrong, having a back-up of your website will prove invaluable – and things can go wrong, even with an excellent security plugin installed. Back-up plugins allow you to restore your website to its former glory in a matter of minutes.

There are lots of great options out there, but my advice would be to go with a name you can trust – in this case, Automattic’s VaultPress service. At least then, if bad luck strikes, you know you’re protected.

List Building: Bloom Email Opt-ins (Elegant Theme Membership)

Now that we’ve covered security, SEO, and speed, let’s start looking at how you can drive more customers for your business.

Around since the internet’s earliest days, email marketing has stood the test of time and remains one of the most effective ways to make money. I’m guessing you want your business to make money, right? Then you need to start collecting emails and building an email list.

To grow your list in the most efficient manner possible, we need to turn to another plugin in the Elegant collection: Bloom.

Integrating with twelve email marketing services, Bloom allows you to collect email addresses from interested parties using six opt-in form types:

Pop-ups

Fly-in

In content

Below content

Widget area

Content locker

Pop-ups are proven to be the most effective at generating conversions as they command maximum attention from visitors. They’re known for being intrusive, however, and so Bloom lets you pick the perfect time to display your pop-up opt-in forms – time delayed, scroll delayed, after inactivity, after commenting, and after purchasing.

Live Chat: Pure Chat (from FREE)

Customer service is an afterthought for many business owners, but it’s something that’s deeply important to your customers – if anything goes wrong, it’s likely the quality of your customer service that resolves the problem.

If you want to offer enhanced customer service on your website, adding a live chat functionality to your website is a great place to start – it’s the quickest way to get a response, after all.

If your business is large enough to justify it, live chat is a must. Not only does it offer the aforementioned reputation-enhancing customer service, you can also use the live chat to answer any pre-sales questions and nullify buyer objections.

We’ve talked about live chat in great detail already, so allow me to recommend my preferred plugin, Pure Chat. The plugin allows you to extensively customize your live chat windows’ appearance on your website, plus you can handle all live chat conversations from the stylish Pure Chat interface.

First Impressions: Video Intro for WordPress ($16)

Now for something a little bit different.

Online users decide within a matter of seconds whether a website is right for them. In other words, first impressions matter. A lot.

The Video Intro for WordPress plugin allows you to greet visitors with a full-screen video. If you’ve spent a lot of money on an engaging video advertisement for your business, this is the perfect time to show it. Visitors are redirected to your homepage upon completion of the video, or they can get there more quickly by skipping it.

You can customize the frame around the video to match your branding, and also display your logo prominently at the top of the screen.

Maintenance Mode: Anticipate (Elegant Theme Membership)

If you run a business, professionalism is king. Everything you do will shape how your business is perceived, and so you have to put your best foot forward at all times.

One example of this is when you’re updating your website – something we all have to do from time to time. Now, a site full of work-in-progress, placeholder text, and broken elements is hardly going to impress visitors, is it? If someone visits your website during this time, your business is going to look more than a little amateurish.

So what’s the solution? Well, it’s relatively simple: display a maintenance mode landing page. It’s not ideal, but it’s a huge improvement on a half-finished website.

If you want to add a maintenance mode screen, I recommend Elegant’s Anticipate plugin. Simply activate maintenance mode and your visitors will see a simple, stylish maintenance mode page. This gives you the opportunity to work on your website in private.

Broken Links: Redirection (FREE)

Continuing with the theme of professionalism, this time I want to look at broken links.

For visitors, a website littered with 404 errors suggests ineptitude – if you can’t keep your website working, how will you manage to fulfill your customers’ needs?

With this in mind, broken links will turn away your visitors in droves. That’s not something any business can afford to do.

If you want to keep your website running smoothly, the free Redirection plugin is one of the best ways to fix 404 errors. This is done by manually configuring 301, 302, and 307 redirects to point visitors to the right place.

Not all 404 errors are your fault, though: some are caused by mistyped external links. Redirection will automatically monitor for fresh 404 errors, allowing you to quickly resolve any problems.

Editorial Calendar: CoSchedule (from $17/month)

Content marketing is a great way to grow your business. Not only does publishing great content help you gain visibility in the search engines, it also reinforces your expertise within your industry, and this in turn will attract more customers.

Publishing great content is a labor-intensive and time-consuming job, however. If you need a helping hand, look no further than CoSchedule, an all-in-one content marketer’s dream.

CoSchedule supports its own editorial calendar functionality, allowing you to use drag-and-drop to reschedule your posts. Beyond this, it can also be used for scheduling social media posts – sync CoSchedule up with your social media profiles, and you can write and schedule social posts from within the WordPress admin.

Want more? You can also use CoSchedule to collaborate with other team members, schedule social shares for your recently published content, and also to give your older posts a push.

Boost Conversions: WordPress Calls to Action (FREE)

So you’ve put together a beautiful website. It’s fully functional, lightning quick, and it attracts hordes of visitors.

You’re heading in the right direction, but now you need to get your visitors to pull out their wallets and become paying customers.

What you need is a call to action (CTA). A compelling CTA encourages visitors to perform a desired action – perhaps making a purchase, giving you a call, or subscribing to your email list. An effective CTA eliminates indecisiveness by telling your visitors exactly what they should do, and this has been proven to boost conversions.

WordPress Calls to Action is a fantastic free plugin that allows you to do just that. The plugin lets you create pop-ups and widget boxes that encourage visitors to take your desired action – and as you can add custom text to the boxes, this “action” can be anything you want.

To help get you started, the plugin includes a number of pre-configured templates, plus you can continuously improve results with built-in A/B functionality.

Final Thoughts

By considering all the plugins featured in today’s list, you should be able to give your business website all the functionality it needs to satisfy customers and stand above the competition.

I’ve deliberately avoided plugins used to directly monetize a website — eCommerce, booking taking, and invoicing plugins — as these plugins are dependent on the nature of your business. Instead, I’ve included general plugins that are applicable for all businesses. In today’s post we’ve covered:

attracting new clients

speeding up your site

boosting conversions

improving customer service

growing an email list

creating a great first impression

developing a content schedule

Of course, this is just a work in progress, and now I need your help. What other WordPress plugins do you think are essential for business websites? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!